


Everyone Dies Eventually

by AdrienRion



Category: Atomic Robo (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 19:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5260928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrienRion/pseuds/AdrienRion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the events of The Ring of Fire. After Robo gets Tesladyne back, they discover Jenkins didn't survive the explosion after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Dies Eventually

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a comment Scott Wegener made on his tumblr in August about how they weren't sure whether Jenkins was going to survive the end of volume 8 or not. When I couldn't get it out of my head I decided I had to write it down, so enjoy.

Humans died. It was a central part of their existence, of all life on earth really. Except for Robo. He had escaped death on more occasions that he could count, and his luck didn't seem about to run out anytime soon. He'd survived nazis, falling through the earth's atmosphere, Edison, Helsingard, Helsingard again, explosions (too many to count), the past, a creature from beyond time itself, Biomega, the vampire dimension, Helsingard _again_. The list could go on and on and on. He didn't count Dr. Dinosaur, he was more of a joke than anything else (slightly related, Robo was starting to hate crystals). Robo was good at surviving.

But humans? Humans died. Even Helsingard, despite his best efforts, and Edison (both of whom were certifiably insane and _still_ being royal pains in Robo's backside. But dead, still very _technically_ dead). Robo had gotten used to the death of humans a long time ago; he was more than ninety years old now and had seen far too many people pass away, both the bad and the good. How many friends had he lost?

He didn't want to think about it. Tesla (whom Robo still sometimes called Mr. Tesla in his head) had been the hardest. Not only had it been unexpected, but it had been his first real experience with someone he cared deeply about dying. You never really get over the death of a parent. He hadn't been lying when he told Broughton and Foley that he used nicknames both because it was hard remembering a lot of names and as a defense mechanism. What he didn't say was the latter heavily outweighed the former.

It was just easier. Don't get attached and their inevitable death wouldn't hurt as much.

Then there was Jenkins. He was, in a lot of ways, Robo's safety net. After he had joined Tesladyne the death toll had plummeted, what with Jenkins having taking it upon himself to make sure as many of their employees (and clients) survived as was physically possible. It was a relief for Robo, not having to worry about someone he knew blowing themselves up, or getting shot, or being eaten by a giant tentacled creature from who knows where. Yeah, it still happened, just not as frequently. That mattered.

He hadn't meant to come to rely on Jenkins quite so much. Sure, he could function without him, and indeed often left Tesladyne in his capable hands while Robo went off doing action science. But without even realizing it, Jenkins had become an emotional crutch, and... somehow, Robo had stopped thinking of him as mortal. And yet.

And yet...

Robo rarely went far to hide his feelings. It had been something Tesla had advised him not to do, because emotions were a way for others to connect with him, to be relatable and appear human. That didn't mean other people wouldn't sometimes fail to see the emotions he showed, but he didn't really try to hide them; when he did it was because he thought it would put his team in danger, or when something seemed too personal to share.

The day they told him they had found Jenkins' body, or what remained of it, washed up on shore... "Oh." was all he'd been able to say. They expected that, it was typical Robo when something saddened him, and this _was_ Jenkins. Still they didn't know quite how deeply it had cut him, to hear those words. Indeed he didn't want them to, didn't want to make them worry any more than they probably already were. Jenkins was... _had been_ there for the entire team. Everyone felt the loss. No, he couldn't show them how painful the news really was, couldn't jeopardize everything they had only just regained. 

But Jenkins would have seen it. Perhaps because he didn't emote much, and Robo _couldn't_ emote as much (not by human standards), Jenkins always saw the subtleties beneath the surface. Or perhaps that was just a rationalization Robo had come up with to explain it away, to try and not see what he hoped was there but didn't think was.

When had he stopped thinking of the possibility that Jenkins might die? It should have still been there, after all the man was aging, his hair slowly becoming more and more gray. _Had been_ aging.

Robo had nodded to Lang and Vik after they told him the news and excused himself. Even as he walked through the halls toward his private room, he could tell the news had already spread. Had he been the last to be told? The sympathetic yet worried looks some were giving him, and the hushed yet frantic conversations others were having that stopped as soon as they noticed he was nearby, his hearing better than they realized.

The pain he felt was as bad as when Tesla had died. Jenkins had become special, a rock that he'd unconsciously thought would never leave, someone he could actually confide his worries and fears in that could actually do something about them. More than twenty years they had know each other, had relied on each other. 

Indeed without meaning to, he had come to feel the same for Jenkins as he once had for Helen. Not exactly the same, it was without the mushy, puppy dog sort of feelings, but that was mostly because he'd outgrown that sort of thing. It was deeper still than anything he'd felt for her, though he knew that was likely due to the sheer about of time he'd known Jenkins versus what honestly amounted to a fling with her.

The idea of loving a man had never really bothered him. He was male, sure, but that was only a mental thing Tesla had given him (though not even Robo could explain how any of that worked). On a physical level, he was arguably male idealized, yet asexual, and sex wasn't something he wanted, needed, or ever even thought about. That was also probably due to Tesla, if he thought about it. It wouldn't have befitted the man to give him identity crises over the physical state of his body, or the desire to have intimacies he could never achieve. He didn't even suffer the same sort of mental hangups humans did over the way they looked in the mirror. 

He had never been sure if Jenkins had realized the way he felt, but it would have been unlike him to not pick up on the subtleties. Sometimes, he'd look over at him and get a touch of a smile in return, the sort he never noticed Jenkins give to anyone else. He'd thought about saying something on multiple occasions, but it had never seemed an appropriate time. Now it never would be. He'd never know if Jenkins shared what he felt, never again see that subtle smile, never relax and peruse the RSS feeds in his head while Jenkins silently read one of his books of sonnets on the couch beside him, never hear him going off on the scientists for doing something stupid, never watch him work out or train or meditate, never be able to count on him to save the day, or anyone's life, again. He would never _be there_ again.

Robo stepped into his rarely used room and locked the door behind him. Tomorrow he'd act as though he was coping well, his feelings better hidden than they could be right now. But for once he needed the solitude the room brought, no one to disturb him.

Leaning with his back against the door, he sank slowly to the ground. Jenkins was gone. In retrospect it had been inevitable, like the eventual deaths of every other human on the planet, only this time he hadn't seen it coming. He had deluded himself into believing it never would.

Although his body would never be capable of doing so, in his mind he wept.


End file.
